REVIEW Ely Guerra: Versatile Voice From Mexico

Tuesday September 28, 2010

from The New York Times

Versatile Voice From Mexico, in Rock Mode
by Jon Pareles

Passion is never less than tempestuous in the music of Ely Guerra, the Mexican songwriter who performed at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday night as part of the Celebrate Mexico Now festival, which this year marks Mexico’s bicentennial. For Ms. Guerra, passion is profound and all-consuming, a matter of ecstasy or desperate need, and it’s the eternal subject of songs that climb toward catharsis or plummet into lonely desolation.

Ms. Guerra is well known in Mexico and hampered by a language barrier in the United States. Her lyrics are in Spanish with, at times, a few words in English; “Women make men messy,” one song declared in English. Her words convey moods, not stories, awaiting the alchemy of her voice. “I am a prisoner of pleasure/as dawn returns I feel the poison of this silence,” she sang in Spanish in “Lontano,” a song about a faraway lover from her most recent album, “Hombre Invisible” (Homey Company).

On her albums since the mid-1990s, Ms. Guerra, 38, has restlessly shifted idioms, dipping into funk and ballads, electronica and bossa nova, revealing more and more facets of a voice that can coo like a chanteuse or let loose a shattering wail, sustain a long-breathed ballad line or cheerlead the “ooh, ooh” of pop hooks. To match “Hombre Invisible,” on which Ms. Guerra collaborated with leading Latin alternative rockers, her stage band was centered on rock guitar, flanking her voice with power chords and wah-wah syncopations.

It could also tilt toward reggae or slinky slow vamps for older songs, but its core was sinewy, straightforward rock. The arrangements evolved with every verse, changing tempos from slow to fast, following and goading her as her voice opened up. Her songs rarely ended as they began. And she didn’t need the band at all; for an encore, she sang “Jurame” (“Swear to Me”) a cappella, with and without a microphone, as much of the audience shouted along.

While Ms. Guerra sang about being overwhelmed by emotion, her stage postures were transformed. She was bare-shouldered in a black top, and her arms could be as expressive as her face: twisting, caressing, imploring, exulting. She was a creature of control and abandon, measuring her gestures as carefully as she hit her notes, but also letting the music move her. Rock is unlikely to be the last stop in Ms. Guerra’s musical itinerary, but at the moment, it brings out all the beauties in her songs.

Read the full article here

Vale Que Tengas	2:50
Antes de Septiembre	4:42
You Love Me	3:00
Bumeran	4:24

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